MUSTAFA FETOURI
At the Quirinale Palace, Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi hailed a “new era” in relations with Italy during his first visit to his country’s former colonial ruler on June 10, 2009. (ERIC VANDEVILLE/GAMMA-RAPHO VIA GETTY IMAGES).
Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, August/September 2023, pp. 44-45
Special Report
By Mustafa Fetouri
IN 2008 ITALY signed a treaty with Libya whereby it agreed to pay reparations to that country for its decades of ruthless colonial misdeeds during the first half of the 20th century. The treaty—the first of its kind between a colonial power and a former colony—offers a model for other countries to follow.
THE MOVIE THAT EXPOSED ITALY’S DARK HISTORY
In 1980 the Libyan government spent more than $30 million on an epic film, “Lion of the Desert,” which depicted Libyan resistance to the Italian army that invaded Libya in 1911 and remained there until 1943. Directed by Moustapha Akkad, and starring top Hollywood names including Anthony Quinn, Oliver Reed and Irene Papas, the film shed light on the crimes of the Italian occupation by telling the story of one of the Libyan resistance heroes, Omar Al-Mukhtar, a septuagenarian who suffered from arthritis but who led the resistance against Italy (which had one of the best armies in the world at the time) for more than 20 years.
Under the command of Rodolfo Graziani, the colonial governor of Libya who was deservedly nicknamed the Butcher of Fezzan, the Italian army used vicious tactics against the poor, mostly nomadic, Libyans. His army scored many firsts: the first to use aerial bombardment, the first to use poisonous gas, and the first to use collective punishment of noncombatants, sending more than 100,000 Libyans into concentration camps, years before such camps were used in Europe.
When he arrived in Rome he brazenly wore a picture of a legendary Libyan resistance hero Omar Al-Mukhtar in chains alongside his Italian captors before his hanging in 1931. (ERIC VANDEVILLE/GAMMA-RAPHO VIA GETTY IMAGES)
In September 1931, Al-Mukhtar was hanged in front of hundreds in Suluq concentration camp, southeast of Benghazi, as a lesson to other would-be rebels. By 1943, the Italian army had slaughtered an estimated one million Libyans.
“Lion of the Desert” was released in 1981 in Europe, however the Italian prime minister at the time, Giulio Andreotti, banned it because he said, it “damaged the honor of the [Italian] army.” Italians only saw it when Sky TV, a private TV channel, aired it on the eve of the first visit by former Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi to Italy. He arrived in Rome, accompanied by Al-Mukhtar’s son, on June 10, 2009, a few months after signing with Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi the treaty that was intended to bring to a close that violent chapter in Italy-Libya relations. A strategic under-the-radar diplomacy and the film prepared public opinion for better relations.
THE TERMS OF THE TREATY
Signed in Benghazi, in eastern Libya, on August 30, 2008, the treaty is considered the first ever in the world between a former colonial power and its former colony. Many believe it could be a model for former colonies to go after their former colonialists. All major former colonial powers, like United Kingdom today, reject any idea of apology let alone paying reparations to their former colonies in Africa and Asia and other parts of the world.
Arriving in Benghazi to sign the Treaty of Friendship, Partnership and Cooperation on Aug. 30, 2008, Prime Minister Berlusconi brought with him the headless statue of Venus of Cyrene, which Italy had stolen from Libya in 1913, and handed it over to Colonel Qaddafi. On stage he bowed to kiss the hand of Al-Mukhtar’s son. He then addressed the assembled crowd, “In the name of the Italian people, as head of the government, I feel it my duty to apologize and express my sorrow for what happened many years ago and left a scar on many of your families.”
The treaty starts with a long preamble followed by 23 articles setting out how the two sides agreed to lay to rest the colonial past. The first paragraph says both countries agree to cooperate to uncover the fate of the Libyan citizens who were forcibly exiled from Libya during the colonial era. Both Rome and Tripoli are resolved to “close the file of the painful past that Italy had already” apologized for in the Joint Declaration of 1998.
The reference here is to the estimated 4,000 Libyan women, men, elderly and children exiled to Italian prisons in the islands of Sicily, Lampedusa and elsewhere between 1912 and 1930. Most of them perished in filthy prison cells. During Qaddafi’s rule Libya honored their memory annually on October 7.
The treaty’s clause 1 of article 8 says that Italy is to pay $5 billion to Libya over a 20-year period, to be used to finance infrastructure, educational, agricultural, cultural and medical projects in Libya, including a 2,000 km (1,242 mile) road linking Libya from east to west, 200 housing units throughout the country and a railroad linking some cities to be agreed about later.
Article 10 of the deal commits Italy to return all artefacts and historical documents stolen from Libya during the occupation. Italy will also fund scholarships for Libyan postgraduate students wishing to study in Italian universities and establish the Libyan Academy in Rome dedicated to the study of the colonial era, an acknowledgment that many facts of that dark period remain hidden. Clause 4 obliges Italy to resume paying retirement pensions to Libyans forced to join the fascist Italian army during the occupation to fight against their own country.
Article 20, clause 3 says “Italy will support” Libya’s claims against other countries to comply them to “compensate” Libyans affected by land mines and to rehabilitate lands from landmines which were heavily used by the Allied forces in World War II when Libya was occupied by the allies after Italy’s defeat. Hundreds of Libyans have, over the years, been injured by mines while thousands of hectares of land remain unused.
NATO’S WAR ON LIBYA
In 2011 Italy reluctantly joined NATO’s military intervention in Libya that toppled the Qaddafi government and sent the country into chaos. The late Berlusconi was against the intervention but Italy’s parliament voted to join it. After the war in Libya many Italian officials called for the suspension of the treaty but no official position on the matter has been taken so far. All work implementing the treaty has been halted because of the instability in the country.
The two countries remain close economic partners particularly in energy. In 2022 Italy imported nearly $7 billion worth of oil mostly through its energy giant ENI, which has been part of the Libyan oil industry since 1959 when oil was first discovered. In 2023 ENI and Libya’s National Oil Corporation have further expanded their partnership in gas production. Italy imports gas via the Green Stream pipeline, under the Mediterranean, linking the two countries. However implementing the terms of the treaty, related to infrastructure, can only resume once Libya becomes safe and stable again—an unlikely prospect in the near future given the continued unstable situation in Libya.
WHO IS NEXT?
The question now is: as the Libyan-Italian treaty enters its 15th year, which other countries in Africa are likely to follow Libya’s model? Algeria, for example, has repeatedly raised the matter with its colonial master, France, but so far failed to get anything. In January this year French President, Emmanuel Macron, said he will not “ask forgiveness” from Algeria. The United Kingdom, another major colonial power has rejected even the idea of debating its colonial past. British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak whose country of origin, India, was occupied by the British for 100 years, rejected any idea of apology let alone paying reparations to slaves or victims of colonial era crimes.
In an historical irony and clear case of blackmail, tiny Haiti was forced to pay reparations to France, its former colonial power for 300 years. However, as the global anti- colonialism movement gains more ground more colonial powers are likely to confront the chapters in their dark past. In addition there are loud calls for the U.S. to compensate its Black Americans for slavery and for Canada to compensate its Indigenous peoples.
Mustafa Fetouri is a Libyan academic and freelance journalist. He received the EU’s Freedom of the Press prize. He has written extensively for various media outlets on Libyan and MENA issues. He has published three books in Arabic. His email is mustafafetouri@hotmail.com and Twitter: @MFetouri..